Battlegames magazine issue 11

The PDF version is identical to the original printed version other than minor alterations to update subscription information and indicate the new format. The file is 144dpi, sufficient to enable you to 'zoom in' on pictures and achieve a pleasing print-out at home.

Bob Barnetson and Bruce McFarlane from Canada carry out another of their comparative reviews, this time of rules for gaming the American War of Independence. Patriots and Loyalists, Warfare in the Age of Reason, Shako, and British Grenadier, together with one boardgame conversion, Clash for a Continent, come under scrutiny.

Dillon Browne — he of Bloody Picnic fame — delivers part 1 of a two-parter on how to write wargames rules.

Paul Bright writes about the experience of staging an ancient Romans demo game using 10mm Magister Militum armies.

Stuart Asquith's battle for wargamers this time is a fictitious scenario based on incidents from the French and Indian Wars, the defence of Fort Cumberland 1758.

Mike Siggins' Forward Observer column ponders the emergence of 28mm plastics, the problems of getting decent lighting for painting, the challenges of painting samurai, online colour matching services and his Top 20 products from 2007, as well as other tidbits.

Arthur Harman, who always comes up with innovative ideas, gives us some great systems for simulating the risk to our tabletop commanders.

Our Fantasy & Sci-Fi Editor Roger Smith is also in rule-writing mode, and ponders some of the challenges facing rules designers in arriving at balanced troop capabilities.

In my own penultimate episode of The wars of the Faltenian Succession, I deal with pontoon bridges (an eagle-eyed reader spotted their omission from an earlier issue) and give some simple, automated rules for carrying out conventional sieges in your campaigns, before taking a more in-depth look at siegecraft.

C S Grant's Table Top Teaser this time is "Insurgency", pitching irregular forces against red-coated rank-and-file. A real humdinger, this could be adapted to any number of historically-paired opponents.

The Recce section is packed as usual, with some excellent rules reviews in particular, including the new Field of Glory ancients rules, There Are Your Guns GdeB variant for the mid 19th century, and em4's Ludus Gladiatorus 2 fun gladiator game in a box.

We have a new regular short column, War and Preece, from veteran British gamer and witty grumpy old man John Preece, whose skilful prose is directed at reminding us that not all new ideas are really new, nor old ideas really old. In his opening issue, he gives a deft sketch of Neil Cogswell.

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